Little bioengineering effort has been made, to date, toward improving the quality of anesthesia management. The influx of new monitoring devices and anesthetic agents has vastly increased the complexity of the anesthesiologist's task rather than simplifying it. Anesthesiologists have been poorly served by their equipment, and need, among other things, safer, more reliable, and less complex anesthesia apparatus which can present an accurate and concise picture of its own status as well as that of the patient. We propose here an interdisciplinary effort to explore state-of-the- art concepts from the rapidly advancing technologies of process control and solid-state electronics, for their application to the development of superior anesthesia instrumentation. Successful use of such technologies would overcome many of the inherent limitations of the strictly mechanical design of existing anesthesia equipment. It would allow replacement of moving parts with rugged, reliable, versatile, solid-state devices. This research and development effort is not only aimed at an ultimate reduction in complexity, but also at an increase in performance capability with a resultant improvement in the control of anesthesia administration and the display of relevant information. Very serious attention will be paid to the issues of human factors engineering. In the course of the proposed study, a number of specific promising available new methods will be investigated for metering and monitoring gases and agents, and for displaying relevant functions. Also, recent relevant instrumentation developments from our own laboratory will be refined. The results of the work will be incorporated into the design and construction of a complete prototype anesthesia delivery system. This integrated system is intended to not only serve as a test vehicle, but as a model and a standard for the application of modern technology to the improvement of the quality of anesthesia care.